After an initial undergraduate training in Chemistry and a PhD in Electrochemistry at Imperial College London. I worked as a research fellow in the University Laboratory of Physiology, University of Oxford using implantable electrochemical sensors and microdialysis probes to study brain neurochemistry. This work was extended to clinical monitoring of the injured brain when I moved to the Department of Chemistry, King’s College London. I moved to the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College in 2004. My biomedical monitoring research group is multidisciplinary, embracing both the development of fundamental physical/ analytical science methods, particularly combining microfluidic devices with electrochemical sensors, and the use of these new techniques in a program of neuroscience and clinical science research. My approach is to combine real-time measurement of neurochemical, electrical and physical measurements such as blood flow and local brain pressure to give a clear picture of the dynamics of tissue response to stimulation or trauma. The same measurement techniques are used in patients and in experimental models allowing genuine translational research.

Modern acute critical care medicine is increasingly seeking to protect vulnerable tissue from damage by monitoring the patterns of physical, electrical and chemical changes taking place in tissue – so called multimodal monitoring. Such patterns of molecular changes offer the exciting possibility of allowing clinicians to detect changes in patient condition and to guide therapy on an individualized basis in real time. Microfluidic lab-on-chip devices coupled to tissue sampling using microdialysis provide an important new way for measuring real-time chemical changes as the low volume flow rates of microdialysis probes are ideally matched to the length scales of microfluidic devices. In this presentation, I will describe the combination of miniature electrochemical sensors and biosensors with 3D printed microfluidic devices for transplant organ and patient monitoring. Concentrations of key biomarker molecules can then be determined continuously using either optically or electrochemically, using amperometric, potentiometic and array sensors. Wireless devices allow analysis to take place close to the patient. Droplet-based microfluidics, by digitizing the dialysis stream into discrete low volume samples, both minimizes dispersion allowing very rapid concentration changes to be measured, and allows rapid transport of samples between patient and analysis chip. This talk will overview successful design, optimization, automatic-calibration and use of both continuous flow and droplet-based microfluidic analysis systems for real-time clinical monitoring, using clinical examples from our recent work.

Add to Calendar ▼2018-06-05 00:00:002018-06-06 00:00:00Europe/LondonLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics Europe 2018Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics Europe 2018 in Rotterdam, The NetherlandsRotterdam, The NetherlandsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com